It looks like you're enjoying RCCrawler's Forums but haven't created an account yet. Why not take a minute to register for your own free account now? As a member you get free access to all of our forums and posts plus the ability to post your own messages, communicate directly with other members, and much more. Register now!

Already a member? Login at the top of this page to stop seeing this message.

I've been doing some research, and polycarbonate (PC) seems to be the strongest material in 3d printing that my printer can handle, but is a hassle and hard to print. I've heard that PLA is very easy to print and good for beginners, but it's not the most durable to constant wear and tear. ABS is also pretty strong, but it's still not a very beginner-friendly material I've heard.

Is starting with ABS and then moving on to polycarbonate a good idea, or should I still start with PLA, then ABS, then to PC?

Humboldt gave you some solid advice. Start with PLA, it will be adequate for a huge portion of your prints and it's great for prototyping and banging out quick prints.

Skip ABS completely. Bed adhesion is tricky when the surface area is large, it really needs an enclosure that's vented to outdoors as they need the ambient heat controlled and produce some of the most toxic gas in the 3d printing world.

PETG is overall the best material around. Prints almost as easily as PLA, as flexible as Nylon and almost as strong as ABS. I'm running 2 printers with it in my dining room right now and I can't even smell it.

I've also moved away from ABS and use mainly PETG. I sometimes use ABS for my son's nerf guns though. Prints well at 230 with a 80 degree bed in an enclosed enviroment with "raft " as your adhesion. No tape, no glue sticks, no hairspray. Ithink my ABS was the hatchbox brand.

Do your research first. Will PLA work for your needs? Then Bowden vs Direct. How big of things do you want to print? How big is your budget? How technical/mechanical are you? Computer literate? Lastly can you do CAD drawings, or look on the web for freebies?

Looking at ABS's properties, especially the ability to be acetone polished, it looks like something worth using.

The prusa i3 MK3 has a heated, and if I put a cardboard box over it, it should print decently well.

Vapor smoothing with ABS takes a lot of trial and error to get the part smooth without melting any fine details off. You can get very similar results out of most any print after a couple coats of filler primer. Even with vapor smoothing, ABS still falls short of the finish on resin prints if super accurate details are your thing.

The biggest positive for ABS in this hobby is the ability to bond it to styrene with solvent for custom hard body work. Anything mechanical or functional, I'm using PETG or nylon.

Vapor smoothing with ABS takes a lot of trial and error to get the part smooth without melting any fine details off. You can get very similar results out of most any print after a couple coats of filler primer. Even with vapor smoothing, ABS still falls short of the finish on resin prints if super accurate details are your thing.

The biggest positive for ABS in this hobby is the ability to bond it to styrene with solvent for custom hard body work. Anything mechanical or functional, I'm using PETG or nylon.

Is PLA a good choice for hardbodies? It warps a lot less than abs, which is great because of its size, but is it strong enough?